From MilesR: Frostgrave & Blood Bowl Skaven (155 Points)

Yet another wish-mash of topics for this submission - some Frostgrave and a Skaven Blood Bowl Team.  I tried to spend a little more time on all the figures in this submission rather than my normal slap-dash job.

First up 11 human figures for Frostgrave

Close up of the Summoner and Apprentice

 Soothsayer and Apprentice

Beastmaster and Apprentice - I really liked this figures

5 assorted adventures - the guy on the far right makes me think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for some reason.

Next up some Beast for Frosgrave - A Boar, Hyena and 6 Giant Rats - one always needs more monsters for Forstgrave.

Next up the newly released plastic Skaven Blood Bowl team from GW.  Blood Bowl has swept my house this Christmas break and your likely to see both Human and Ork teams also painted up.  While GW has some spotty pricing policies, they do make fantastic figures - I had forgotten how much fun they are to paint up.

First close up is of the Gutter runners - these guys are super fat receivers but very lightly armored.

Next up the Blitzers.  I screwed up the decal on the left figure so wrote the name in by hand.  I actually like it better than the decal - looks even more unintelligent!  I may go back and scrape of the position name decals and paint them back on. There's a lineman with the same issue.

2 passers - interesting way they throw the ball - I guess having a prehensile tail has some benefits

Finally the 6 lineman.   As I said earlier these figures where a blast to paint up and I'm looking forward to getting a game in with them.  My son is partial to playing the Orks and I'm not sure how the lightly armored Skaven will stand up to those brutes

+1 to GW for bringing this game back!

In terms of points, there are 31 total 28mm figures, so that should net me a tidy 155 points, if my math is right.

As for whats up next - I'm feeling something very vehicular-like......

I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of Bloodbowl with the recent republishing by GW. If your Skaven are anything to go by Miles this can only be a good thing. This is the first time I've seen the plastic Skaven and I like the dynamic poses very much.

Your Frostgrave minis are also very nice indeed and a reminder to me I have a side Challenge with Evan I really should be devoting some time towards. I also have the Summoner and Apprentice in the painting queue and if mine turn anything like as good as yours I will be well pleased with the result.

Your math is spot on mate. All up you've added a solid 155 points to your tally but then I'm hardly going to argue with you on anything related to math and spreadsheets now am I?

Cheers,
Millsy

From SamuliS: 2cm Flak38 platoon (60 points)

Another quick entry with some more of Jerry! This time a 2cm Flak38 platoon to provide the vital AA cover shooting down pesky observation aircraft and attack planes and act as some emergency light AT firepower when all else fails. With these out of the way I've only got a couple of Jagdtigers and Kingtigers to paint up and I have my force from Remagen ready for the tournament.

Battlefront minis as usual. The guns themselves are actually pretty good, but on some of the crew the moulds were a bit misaligned and needed a lot of clean up to get them ready. Still nothing new to anyone buying their stuff :)  I made some sandbags from green stuff to spice up the bases. Slightly annoyingly I didn't realized that I'd put the loaders on the wrong side of the gun before I'd done the bases already. Painting went quite fast with no camouflage patterns to do and just a simple base colour, highlight and  wash combination to get them done. 4 guns, 18 infantry and 4 gunners should come up to 56 points.

Now back to the painting desk!

It seems I'm not the only one painting Flames of War at the moment. Good too see one of the less commonly fielded units getting some attention Samuli. 

I very much like the colours you've chosen and despite the fact these are a quick effort they really look the business! I wouldn't have known the loader was in the wrong position from the photo and I doubt many others will realise when viewed from gaming distance. 

A well earned 60 points for your total mate!

Cheers,
Millsy

Millsy the Part-time Minion...

G'day all!

Our esteemed Snow Lord has dashed off for a quick weekend away with the lovely Lady Sarah and left me in charge of the asylum as Minion du jour.

This may or may not be a good thing. Power does strange things to people as we all well know. Anyway, for the next 24 hours I'm dispensing the meds and deciding who gets let out for exercise. Happy days!

Cheers,
Millsy

Switching the Helmsman

 Hello Everyone!

Tomorrow is Lady Sarah's birthday so I'm taking her out of town for the day. Our veteran Minion Millsy will be taking over the helm for the next 24 hours. 

You'll be in good hands. (Life preservers and dingys are at the front of the ship...)

Best,

Curt

From AnthonyO: Into the dark realms and some Sherwood Archers (95 Points)

For the second week of the challenge I have pushed deeper into the dark realms with some more chaos to add to my ever spawning evil force for Kings of War. I am not really concerned as to where these particular units will fit in the force just yet, more that I have and like the miniatures and will find a way to fit them into a force list later on. I have also completed a quick unit of Sherwood themed archers for my Armies of Man force.

  

My first two units are a Chaos cultist who I imagine to be a powerful Summoner who has summoned this Demon to the realm of man and will  soon let it lose, so long as it doesn't turn on him first! The Cultist is an old GW metal and the Demon is from Avatars of War - 10 points.

 

Next up are my Sherwood themed archers, they are old GW plastics and are for my ever growing Armies of Man force for Kings of War. The Stag on the banner Friar Tuck is holding was a quick freehand job. Next up will be some Crossbowman to complete the ranged options for this force - 50 points.

The next evil creature is from the Zombiecide Black Plague game and I wanted to make it look like a a Forrest Demon straight from the nightmares parents tell their children to get them in bed at night. Being twice the size of the 28mm summoner I have given him 10 points.

Rounding off the evil denisens of the dark realm are some sort of demon dogs who would be sent off to hunt down their prey so they can slate their thirst for blood. These guys are metal and I am not sure where they originated having obtained them in a trade - 25 points.

So two weeks in and my tally should sit at 210, the pile is growing with a lot more coming on the horizon.

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Wow, terrific work Anthony! I really like your colour blending, especially on that forest demon - very, very nice. It's also great to see those veteran archer models getting some love. I've heard some good things about Kings of War and am looking forward to giving them a go with my old Empire collection. 

A very respectable 95 points to add to your tally, Anthony. Well done!
 

From AlexS: Magna Graecia (380 Points)

Hi everyone again! I present to you the following for the army by the rules of the games Simon Miller "To the Strongest!". This time it is the army of the Great Greece - Greek policies in Italy. I really enjoyed working with this army. A lot of interesting colors, different units.

I enjoyed working with both the company Victrix plastic and iron of Foundry. I liked to draw emblem of on shields, and I allowed myself a couple of times with this joke. So here is the result:

Psiloi (Victrix)

Italian allied hoplites (Victrix)

Psiloi again (Victrix)

Peltasts (Victrix)

Generals (Foundry)

Hero (Foundry and Victrix)

Mercenary celt psiloi (Warlord)

Hero (Miniature created by sculptor Dmitry Medvedev)

 Last year I was very delighted example of Mr. Miles, who presented us all the model ships. And I decided to follow his inspiring example and assemble and paint a ship. The first time I did it since the days of childhood and really enjoyed. Masts and sails I did not yet installed, because I have a problem with the storage of large models. Let this be the ship, pulling on the land - it would be a great objective. This Greek trireme, and it is called "The Son of Horus." (Hey, Greg!)

Mercenary hoplits (Vixtrix)

General view:

Total:
66 inf
1 ship

Well, a few words at the end of the post. Doing 20-30 models a day has proved difficult. Age is not the one to sleep and not so easy to 2-3 hours a day. But ahead of big holidays - New Year, Orthodox Christmas and our favorite holiday mysterious Old New Year. I'm going to sleep, eat and play with children. I will not touch a brush and paints. But when the holidays end... :)

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Well, I'm pretty sure this is a new record for for the books. Absolutely AMAZING work Alex!! You really need to get some rest after this effort (and perhaps enjoy the holidays). So much to say about these figures. The solid painting, the hand painted shields, the great basing, the SHIP!! Absolutely terrific. 

For both the shields and ship I'm going to award an extra 50 points. So over the past 10 days you've painted over 1000 points. Wow. Just wow. 

Suffice it to say the 'First to 1000 Points' duel is concluded. :)

Again, great work Alex.

Side Duels and Challenges Points Update

Hi All,

The first points update for the Side Duels and Challenges has been posted.

As most people are not telling me when they have submitted something worth points I've had to try and work it out myself from trawling posts. Please have a look at the current standings and let me know if something looks incorrect.

Notable in this first points update is AlexS, DaveD and MilesR already slugging hard for the first to 1000 points bragging rights...

Cheers,
Millsy the Duels Wallah

From MichaelP: Vendel Fantasy Barbarians (20 Points)

I get on the AHPC scoreboard with some 28mm fantasy barbarians from Vendel, which are now carried by Sgt. Major Miniatures.

While I would like to claim all twelve, the truth is that I started 8 of these figures before the beginning of the Challenge, so I can only count four, but I've forgotten which four they are.  Thus, you get to see them all.  My friend James and I have both been working on Lord of the Rings armies for some time, and we recently decided on Vendel as a cheap way of fleshing out our forces in addition to the pricier (and sometimes OOP Games Workshop LOTR line).

These figures, which Vendel calls "Hillmen", will stand in for the human enemies of Rohan, the wild men of Dunland: "All Isengard must be emptied; and Saruman has armed the wild hillmen and herd-folk of Dunland beyond the rivand these also he loosed upon us" (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers).

With their fur capes and clothes, the Vendel figures seem ideal for the Dunlendings, who are clearly far below the Rohirrim in terms of civilization.

The Vendel figures are clunky and fairly simple sculpts, but they do paint up quickly and with some simple shading look good en masse.  Here their boss Saruman looks on in approval as they march on Helm's Deep.

Using Dragon Rampant, the fantasy rules of choice for my gaming group, these can either be a 12 man unit of light archers, or two 6 man units - in DR I would give the Dunlendings the ability to skirmish and evade and treat them as rangers in terms of moving through rough terrain without penalty.  I wouldn't rate them very highly otherwise - their main use for Isengard will be to locate, fix and harass the enemy while the Uruk Hai move into position for the kill.

Four 28mm figures gets me 20 points to get me on the scoreboard.
Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

Michael the Mad Padre

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Great to have you aboard with us again, Padre! 

These are excellent proxies for Dunlendings. Their fur cloaks (and the odd plain helm) really make them fit the part. I like that last shot of Saruman sending them off to steal lunches and push other kids into puddles. 

20 points to mark your entry on the points roster, Michael. Well done.

From AaronH ECW Pikemen (40 Points)

This next entry is finishing up two regiments from the last two Challenges. This is eight ECW pikemen, four for my green regiment and four for the blue regiment.

Mostly Foundry but one Warlord.

My ECW regiments are made up of Warlord plastics. They are inexpensive and look good. I've also found that I like the plastic pikes as they are much less likely to draw blood in moments of carelessness.

The problem with the Warlord boxes is that they have horizontal pikes, which I hate. This means that I'm short the number I need for a full regiment. I, therefore, purchased some vertical pikes from Wargames Foundry to fill the lack.

All Foundry castings.

The Foundry models are just slightly smaller but not enough to notice. They are also much simpler so paint up more quickly. There are some weird spots on the faces and the hands but all in all, they do just fine for filling in the back ranks of the pike block.

The swords are also pretty badly cast. You can't see it well from this angle but from above they are something of a mess.

The blue regiment.

Here's the entire blue regiment, now complete. I clearly need to go in and super glue the sand mix down on the edge of some of these bases. I should also figure out how to make the flags less static.

The Green Regiment

The green regiment also complete. As I was taking the pictures I realized that one of the front rankers is missing his arms. It appears one the boys may have been playing with these.

Now that these two are complete I can work on another regiment of foot during the Challenge. I also have 12 more horse which should find their way onto the table during the next three months.

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Those new recruits look excellent Aaron! Even though they are smaller castings, they seem to mix well with the Warlord figures. I like the washes you've used. It gives them some very nice gradation and definition.  The group photos are wonderful - it's always great to see a pike block with its attendant sleeves of shotte!

Well done!